Search Results for: business

June 22, 2016

Brexit uncertainty leads to drop in cost of living rankings for UK cities ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

UK cities have dropped down the ranking in Mercer’s annual Cost of Living Survey this year as Brexit fears weaken the value of the Pound, whilst the Euro stays strong against the Dollar. Although the UK’s capital remains in the top 20 costliest cities worldwide, London (17) has dropped five places, whereas Aberdeen (85) and Birmingham (96) have fallen seven and 16 places respectively. Further down the list, (119) has dropped 10 places and Belfast (134) three. The survey finds that factors including currency fluctuations, cost inflation for goods and services, and instability of accommodation prices, have all contributed to the cost of expatriate packages for employees on international assignments. Mercer’s survey covers 209 cities across five continents with Hong Kong ranking highest, pushing Luanda to second place. Ranking 3rd, Zurich is the most expensive European city, followed by Singapore (4) and Tokyo (5).

June 21, 2016

Tech unicorns thrive in Europe and UK leads the way, claims report ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

Fortune magazine begs to differ, but Europe as a whole is a seemingly fertile breeding ground for ‘tech unicorns’, according to a new report from technology investment bank GP Bullhound. Defined as technology startups with a market valuation of more than $1 billion, the report claims that there are now 47 so-called unicorns in Europe, up by 10 from last year. The report also claims that the UK is leading the way within Europe, with 18 out of the 47 based in the country with new entries such as Blippar and Anaplan. The European firms have a combined value of $130bn, and ‘have demonstrated resilience in the face of turbulent global markets and heightened scrutiny of fast-growth tech’. Sweden is the country with the second highest number of billion-dollar tech companies (7), including Spotify (pictured), Europe’s most valuable Unicorn. Germany is third with six and France with three. Oddly, the report also includes Israel which has three unicorns.

June 21, 2016

London office rents predicted to stay strong provided there’s no Brexit ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

The continuing imbalance between the supply and demand for office space throughout London is resulting in a shift in the balance of negotiating power away from tenants, according to the latest London Office Update from Carter Jonas. Rents across Central London have, on average, risen by over 50 percent over the last five years in the West End, Midtown and South Bank office markets, and by over 30 percent in the City of London. Rent free periods have typically fallen by up to six months over the same period. In the next 18-24 months, the trend will continue to be higher rents and shorter rent free periods as availability remains low. While some occupiers may leave London altogether, others may adopt a ‘spoke and hub’ strategy, whereby back office functions relocate to peripheral, lower cost, areas while ‘client facing’ operations are retained in Central London. This prediction assumes that Britain rejects Brexit however, and there are no major economic shocks.

June 21, 2016

Ageing workforce requires employers to better address skills gaps ⁰

by Sara Bean • Events, News, Workplace

The Government’s 2016 Working Futures report revealed that the total number of jobs in the UK is expected to rise by 1.8 million between 2014 and 2024, while the working age population (16-64) is expected to increase by half this amount. Now a policy event being held in London by the Westminster Employment Forum will draw attention to the growing challenge faced by business leaders as the UK workforce continues to age. According to figures from the CIPD, 9.4 million people in employment in the UK are over the age of 50, equivalent to over 30 per cent of the workforce. The Open University is advising that, with employees staying in work longer, business leaders need to ensure that workers have the right access to education and the skills to remain competitive and productive at all stages of their careers. Ageing Workforce in the UK, will explore what steps need to be taken in order to adapt to this demographic shift.

June 20, 2016

What happens when you take transparent office design to extremes ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

A rigid and unswerving adherence to a principle is rarely a good thing in the long run. This is perhaps doubly so when it comes to office design because the end result is often something that overlooks what offices are really for; namely giving human beings a place to go to be with one another. So, when you take a design dogma to extremes that ignore the human being that should be your core concern, you end up getting something like the office with no chairs, because ‘sitting is the new smoking’. Or you get the office made completely of glass because ‘transparency generates trust’. While it’s true that the Dutch firm MRVDV responsible for the refit of the building in Hong Kong has included some genuinely successful features, not least in the use of natural light and the environmental performance of the building, the interior itself is clearly the end product of meetings in which nobody felt comfortable telling everybody to knock it off.

June 17, 2016

Home or away. What should employers be doing about the game? ⁰

by Anita Rai • Comment, Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

The Euros 2016 are underway. It’s an exciting time for the nation, but not so much for businesses that are potentially facing a largely absent workforce, be it physically or simply because they will spend at least 90 minutes of their afternoon glued to their mobile phones watching the match. Some employees might have been organised enough to book annual leave for the afternoon, but for many, they will be devising a cunning plan as to how they can get away to watch the match. Employers can expect to be faced with a hike in “sickies” and last minute requests to work from home as suddenly there’s a delivery due or a poorly child to look after. Some employees will just decide to chance it and not come back to the office after their lunch breaks, with no pre-authorisation at all. So what should you be doing as an employer?

June 17, 2016

Younger and older workers share many of the same attitudes to the workplace ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology, Workplace design

The behaviour and attitudes of young people in the workplace are very similar to those of older generations. We keep repeating this point but it’s always worth reminding ourselves given the prevailing narratives that obscure this truth. Indeed, so powerful is the narrative that even when a piece of research or a survey contradicts it, there is often an attempt to ignore the report’s own finding’s in favour of something that fits the meme. This happens more often than you think which is why it’s always worth going beyond the headlines to look at what lies beneath. This week, two reports have appeared which highlight just how much a younger generation of workers shares the same attitudes and challenges as other generations. According to the reports, this is true for issues such as presenteeism and the need for the company of colleagues and so suggest we don’t need to treat different age groups quite so differently as is often claimed.

June 17, 2016

Homeworking loses appeal as workers prefer flexible office environment ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Furniture, News, Workplace design

Most workers now look for flexibility in where and how they work finds a new survey from the British Council for Offices. But this doesn’t mean homeworking; as less than a third (28 percent) of workers now say they would prefer to work from home, a figure that has dropped from 45 percent in 2013, when the research from the BCO and Savills was last conducted. Over three-quarters of respondents (77 percent) said that they currently work in a traditional office, with the majority (60 percent) choosing to work from a dedicated workstation compared to only four percent that are asked to share desks with colleagues. This desire for a dedicated desk has increased over the past three years, rising from a figure of 41 percent in 2013; but despite demand for a dedicated desk, most workplaces (70 percent) now also include a communal environment to work from, providing a space for more dynamic working.

June 17, 2016

Poor office acoustic design biggest issue for workers, but bosses aren’t listening ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

Open-plan offices are meant to encourage collaboration and contribute to a collegial workplace culture, but they also come with serious drawbacks like noise and distraction. New research claims that more than half of employees said poor office acoustic design reduces their satisfaction at work. Many feel compelled to solve the problem on their own, blocking out distraction through visits to break out spaces, taking walks outside, or listening to white noise and music on headsets or headphones. The survey of more than 600 executives and 600 employees by Oxford Economics and Plantronics set out to understand what works for employees—and what doesn’t—about open-plan layouts, and to test for disconnects between workers and their managers. The results show that threats to productivity and worker peace of mind are bigger issues than most executives realise, and most do not have the technology or strategies in place to deal with the problems.

June 16, 2016

London market for flexible workspace outstrips conventional space ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

The UK market for flexible workspace has grown 11 percent in just the last 12 months. The main driver of the upsurge is inevitably London, which saw the biggest increase of flexible space at 16 percent and now represents a third of the whole UK market. According to the new research by The Instant Group, traditional occupier inquiries for London grew at a lower rate (nine percent), meaning the supply of flexible workspace in London has outstripped conventional office space by some margin over the last year; a trend the report suggests that seems set to continue into the future. Double digit growth for flexible workspace was also been seen across the UK’s regions, with suburban locations seeing some of the UK’s most aggressive growth in terms of workstation rates and inquiries, despite a 12.5 percent increase in supply, as occupiers have chosen cheaper locations with good transport links over the highly competitive market in central London.

June 16, 2016

Most likely scenario of a Brexit vote is minimal impact on employees ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Legal news, News, Workplace

A more nuanced and balanced view from both leave and remain campaigns on how the EU Referendum will affect employees is needed, a leading HR authority has warned. Commenting on how the outcome of the EU Referendum will affect employees, Professor of Human Resources Chris Rowley, at Cass Business School, said: “The deluge of increasingly extreme polar dichotomy arguments and claims regarding possible post-Brexit life also applies to the critical area of work and employment where the Remain and Leave camps have some of their greatest internal tensions and contradictions. Both sides betray a lack of historical and contemporary grounding and analysis of both employee relations and politics. One problem is that there is much counterfactual argument of causation – what would have happened anyway.” In the short term and possibly even in the longer term he says that a Brexit vote would be unlikely to impact employment law, as so much is already enshrined at work.

June 15, 2016

Biggest risk to company cyber security is mainly staff carelessness ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Technology, Workplace

Bad habits and a lack of awareness about security mean that employees are inadvertently leaving companies’ cyber doors wide open to attack. New research by Norrie Johnston Recruitment (NJR); which forms part of NJR’s cyber security report: how real is the threat and how can you reduce your risk, shows that 23 percent of employees use the same password for different work applications and 17 percent write down their passwords, 16 percent work while connected to public wifi networks and 15 percent access social media sites on their work PCs. It’s not that people are unaware of the cyber threat. The research also shows that just over 50 per cent have experienced a cyber scam in the last twelve months. 29 have received a fake email from PayPal, Apple or a bank, 12 percent have been targeted by a Facebook scam and 7 percent have clicked a link that put a virus on a PC.